Developer OtherSide Entertainment has announced that its co-op stealth game, Thick as Thieves, is not getting any new content. In a statement, game director Jeff Hickman cited a tough economic situation, which in turn has led to “only a very small team” still remaining at the studio. He went on to note that “this is not the outcome any of us want”.
“Working in the gaming industry is at times delightful and at other times heartbreaking. As many of you know, OtherSide Entertainment has lost most of its beloved members, and only a very small team remains. This means there will be no further content updates for Thick as Thieves. To be frank, this is not the outcome that any of us want, but we’re facing the reality that ongoing development of extra content, modes, and systems is not a viable path.”
On the bright side, Hickman has confirmed that the team is working hard to ensure that Thick as Thieves continues to remain playable. To ensure that server closures don’t affect the game, OtherSide is currently working on a new version of the stealth title that makes use of peer-to-peer networking for its online co-op play, which essentially removes the need for dedicated servers in the cloud.
“In partnership with our publisher, Megabit, we are working to secure the future of Thick as Thieves for our players. This means that a small team of dedicated people are hard at work to ensure that the game continues to function into the future. This mainly involves putting together a new version of the game that uses peer-to-peer servers for co-op play. The gameplay and flow of your experience will remain virtually identical, but will not need the use of dedicated servers in the cloud.”
This won’t change how the general gameplay works, and players will continue to be able to play Thick as Thieves entirely offline in solo mode, as well as alongside a friend through online co-op. Megabit itself will take over the maintenance of the game after the work is complete to ensure that bug fixes can come as needed.
“We know that this news is bittersweet, but our number one priority is to ensure continued operations of the game that we all love.”
Thick as Thieves was released on PC back in May. Since then, OtherSide Entertainment has been facing quite a bit of hardship. June saw it get hit with a round of layoffs affecting 17 employees. In a statement, the company confirmed that this was due to its in-development project, codenamed Argos, getting canceled.
Another round of layoffs came about earlier this month, which has left the studio with “fewer than 10” workers tasked with little more than maintaining Thick as Thieves. As for the future of the studio, a spokesperson has said that there are “currently no plans for the studio to work on any future games.”
For more details about Thick as Thieves, take a look at our review, where we gave it a score of 7 out of 10.
